A large and increasing number of effective medications is available to treat and prevent a wide variety of diseases, infections, infestations and other veterinary conditions effecting companion animals. In fact, the strong demand for drugs that improve the lives of people's pets has fueled the development of a global market valued in excess of ten billion USD. However, compliance remains a significant challenge. Many medications, such as those that treat and/or prevent the infestation of ectoparasites, like ticks and fleas, must be administered at regular time intervals, for example, once per month. Failure to timely administer medications to companion animals, such as dogs, can have devastating consequences, most severely including prolonged extreme discomfort and even death due to heartworm infestation. Compliance with FRONTLINE® and HEARTGARD®/CARDOMEC®/CARDOTEK® products (Merial Limited) varies by country. Current estimates indicate compliance is 2 doses per year (Brazil), 5 doses per year (Australia), and 4 doses per year (United States). Effective dosing reminders could increase compliance and significantly improve the overall health of companion animals including dogs and cats, as well as reduce the opportunity for transmission of certain zoonotic diseases to humans.
Prior efforts to improve compliant use of medicaments in companion animals have been largely unsuccessful. These attempts include, for example, email reminders, refrigerator magnet countdowns, and personal data assistants (e.g. cell phone and the like) applets. For a reminder tool to be effective, it must be visible (i.e. not hidden in a drawer or other storage location) and it must not be able to be easily reset. Quick reset can allow the user to stop the reminder signal (beeping alarm, flashing lights, etc.) and “treat the animal later”. In reality, stopping the reminder signal has the effect of delaying or preventing timely/appropriate dosing of the companion animal, thus leading to increased numbers and severity of medical complications associated with reduced compliance. Some negative consequences of reduced medication compliance include, for example, unnecessarily protracted illnesses, the development of more serious conditions than were originally being treated, and even death in the case of heartworm disease.
“Compliance tools”, defined herein as devices/methods/software that improve the compliant use of drugs and medications, are well known in the art. For example, various timers, keychain pill reminders, electronic pill dispensers, wearable reminders (e.g. pendants or bracelets) are available to assist human patients in managing complicated medicament regimens. Such devices can be quite sophisticated, tracking multiple medication schedules. Some medication reminder devices are programmed by a physician or a pharmacist, while others can be set up by the patient. Some devices incorporate compliance tracking features in which the patient presses a “taken” button to store a time stamp when a medication is taken. Many medication reminder devices are geared toward prescriptions involving taking a medication multiple times within a day, mostly for a single medication and usually for a limited number of days. As such, it is relatively easy for the patient to remember what medicines the reminder are associated with.
Some actions are regularly taken at relatively long time intervals, such as the use of certain medications. For example, certain kinds of heartworm medications for dogs are given at monthly intervals. There are scheduling software products for computers and which could be used as a reminder for such an activity engaged in at a long interval schedule. There is also a known device for reminding a pet owner to administer a medication on a monthly cycle, sold as the ALRT Pet Reminder from ALR Technologies, Inc. of Bellingham, Wash. The ALR device is programmable, has light and an audible alert which are activated at a preset interval, and is provided in a shape, such as a dog paw shape or a bone shape. When the reminder device activates, the pet owner is alerted that some activity related to the pet should occur, but is not informed exactly what activity is called for. Beck attempted to address this problem by providing an electronic reminder device that displays a particular company logo, or brand, so that the companion animal owner might be reminded of what he or she was supposed to do (please see U.S. Pat. No. 6,665,966, to Beck & Associates). However, the patent discloses devices that have reset buttons, which can lead to reduced compliance. Further, the devices are designed to be mounted to a surface, and so fail to physically connect to the companion animals, making them quite easy to ignore. However, any device that is in close to the animal regularly could also be eaten, as dogs are known for ingesting unusual items. Therefore, any such device in regular close proximity must pose minimal risk to the animal's health if ingested.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,329,918 (to Moyer) describes an electronic animal identification tag and pager. The device allows a user to program and display a variety of data, including reminders. However, the relatively high cost of the device precludes its use as a stand-alone, disposable compliance tool. Further, because the device is programmable, the user can simply turn off any reminder alarm, thus defeating the purpose of the reminder.
GB 2 341 379 (to Thomson) describes an electronic identification device with integral display. The device similarly allows programmable display of information. Likewise, this device fails to provide a stand-alone, disposable compliance tool that poses little to no health risk if accidently ingested.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,502,060 (to Petronics) describes a clock for the attachment of a dog's collar that indicates the passage of time according to the dog's or pet's frame of reference. As above examples, the device is programmable and could be used to remind a human to medicate a companion animal, however, the device suffers from similar drawbacks with regard to its possible use as a compliance tool.
US 2002/0180591 (to Berstling) describes a small programmable reminder timer having an attachment means by which the device can be attached to items within a household or attached to a pet's collar or cage. Though potentially wearable, the device cannot be considered disposable, due to cost, nor can it be considered remotely safe to ingest.
Finally, the “DOG e MINDER®” (Dogeminder, patent pending status indicated on the company's website) is an electronic dog ID tag and dog care reminder system. The device is neither disposable nor small enough to be possibly safe to ingest.
As regards companion animal medication compliance, each of the above-mentioned devices absolutely requires a human to remember to program in, and not later ignore, a reminder. None of the prior art describes a compliance tool that, for example, is automatically activated at the point of use, and further, cannot be ignored because it is both attached to the companion animal and lacks a reset button. In general, previous compliance tools are generally unnecessarily complex, costly, and they do not provide as persistent and unavoidable a reminder as would be provided by a compliance tool that is safely affixed to dogs and/or cats.
Prior to the instant disclosure, no safe, effective, non-resettable, and reasonably-priced wearable companion animal compliance tool has been made. In particular, no disposable pet reminder tag, made of components that are non-toxic to a pet and designed to minimize complications if accidentally ingested, has been made. Accordingly, the present invention is directed to addressing the problem of companion animal medicine compliance by providing a new and improved compliance tool.